The House
by celadon
Summary: Don's thoughts when Alan announces he's selling the house. One shot.


_A/N: I do have the next part of **Collateral Damage **about ready to post - this is just a trial balloon to see if the site is really up and running again, or just trying to lull me into a false sense of security._

The House

It was just a house, really. No need to get all silly about it - just lumber and glass and surrounding dirt…and memories, of course, but memories lived in your mind and your heart - you could take those with you wherever you went - the building didn't shelter them, not really. It was just a house. And, come on, he hadn't lived in it for years. So there was no explaining the terrible, cold feeling that had gripped his stomach when his father announced that he was selling it.

The decision made perfect sense - Dad was getting old, the house required a lot of upkeep, the market was hot - large, historic homes on a nice patch of land were worth a small fortune in Southern California. He had said so, had made the words sound calm and oh-so-reasonable through the suddenly arid territory of his throat, encouraged his dad, reassured Charlie. He knew the sick feeling inside would go away - it was just the shock, really, the suddenness of it, that had caught him off guard.

Sure, it had always been nice, wherever he went - traveling the circuit with the _Stockton Rangers_, crisscrossing the country with Fugitive Recovery, setting up housekeeping in Albuquerque - to think of it as being here. A sort of haven - a little monument to safety and warmth and his childhood years. It had been nice, but hey, things changed, time moved on - had to be adult about these things.

Just a house. It wasn't like his mother was actually still here.

Oh, it evoked her memory, of course,like nothing else did…held sounds that seemed to hover just below hearing sometimes…of her picking out a melody on the piano, humming while she fussed in the kitchen, mumbling to herself over a stack of law briefs and documents and files…or yelling. _Donnie, have you done your homework? No baseball until it's finished! I mean it, Donnie!…Charlie, I want you to **leave** your homework or whatever you're doing with those books and get outside in the air! I mean it, Charlie_…

He smiled.

Still. It wasn't as if her voice was actually trapped inside the wood of the walls, resonating faintly when the house was hushed and still. That was just - imagination. He knew better. He was a grown man, after all.

Of course, the perennials she had planted still bloomed around the house, but one flower was pretty much like another, right? And the koi she had stocked the pond with were just fish. The same fish, many of them, that she had originally selected, that she had let him watch her acclimate to the pond and had showed him how to feed. Koi could live for a long time, longer than people - much longer than people with cancer and probably longer than people who dodged gunfire for a living…but that wasn't the point. New owners could be taught to take care of koi, or could even get rid of them, fill in the koi pond and put an ugly statue there instead. It would be their property, their right. Feeling sad about it was…childish nostalgia. It would pass. Pain always passed, if you waited long enough. Or ignored it hard enough. Or, at least, you could get really good at pretending it did.

The basketball hoop was a good way to relieve stress and work off excess adrenalin, but he and Charlie could schedule a regular date at the gym instead. As regular as his irregular schedule would allow, anyway. It could even be fun. It could.

Poker games could happen at his place - it would force him to do something with the apartment besides crash there - blow the dust off once in a while, maybe set out a couple of pictures. It was time he did that anyway.

He would miss stopping by here for dinner, but they could all go out instead - meet at a restaurant, and hey, no dishes after. That's what single guys did anyway, and they were three single guys since Mom…oh, come on, it wasn't like she was interred here or something, she wasn't - there was a place to visit for that kind of thing.

The furniture could be sold, or maybe Dad would let him and Charlie put it into storage until one of them could use it - that would be nice. A nice memento to have. Not that they _needed_ mementos. She had spent a lot of time putting this home together, sure, but she still really lived on in them - in the man she had cherished and the two boys she had birthed and lovingly raised. They were her legacy. This was just a building. A house. And think of the time it would free up - no more weekends spent raking leaves or staining shingles - time to do a lot of things instead. There was nothing to be blue about.

Yeah, okay, he would miss using it as a pit-stop - it was such a handy drop-by point between the office and his apartment - a place for a quick meal, a quick chat, a moment to touch base, or even drop down at the dining room table to work, almost exactly where he had once done his homework, Mom stopping by occasionally to check his progress and scold any sloppiness…_I want you to do that again, young man, and do it right this time. You aren't fooling me one bit, Don Eppes, I know you're smarter than that…_

True enough. He never had been much good at fooling her. Everybody else, maybe - but not her.

Well, it would be a change, that was all, and maybe it would even be hard, but in the end, it would be okay. He would stay at the office longer instead, or make his apartment better, or find a new in-between stopping point, and life would go on, because it always did, whether you wanted it to or not. If there was one thing that life had taught him, it was that nobody ever died of a broken heart. Not even if you really, really wanted to.

So, okay. They would lose the house. But they'd still have each other, and that was what was important. A house was just a place to live, no matter how beloved, how dear. Losing it, for all practical purposes, did not mean losing your sense of rootedness - connection. It was about losing property. Real estate. He'd come to terms. Dad was right - it was better for him, better for Charlie. So he would have to find a way to make it better for himself, too. He could - it was all about state of mind, mind over matter. Letting go. So he'd let go. He was good at that. It was his specialty.

So when Charlie had announced, looking a little shy and a little proud, that he had bought the house from Dad, that sweeping sense of relief that filled him was probably - just reaction. Surprise. And they'd used tear gas in a raid that day and he'd removed his mask a little prematurely - that probably accounted for the sudden tightness in his chest and that prickling behind his eyelids. As for the urge to throw his arms around Charlie and crush him in a hug, well, he was just proud, that's all. It was a big step for Charlie. And of course, he didn't actually do it. Didn't want to scare the kid. So he had just grinned and said, "Good for you," and collected glasses and set them up for a toast.

He might have looked just a little more carefully at the details of the house that night - the familiar lines of the staircase, the well-rubbed built-ins, the simple, beautiful furnishings and the amber-cast lamps, but that was being practical. Well-kept Craftsman houses were worth a lot of money. He was admiring Charlie's investment.

And besides, he couldn't be all that attached, because days passed before he managed to make his way back. He took his time, enjoying the scenic trip up the drive, smiling at the ratty basketball hoop and the warm yellow pool the porch light cast on the front steps. Both Charlie and Dad were out, but he guessed he had known that they would be. Didn't matter.

He stood in the entryway, drinking in the echoes of a hundred feet, a hundred fights, a hundred kisses, a hundred tears; of people come and people gone. Then he shrugged out of his jacket and slung it on the coat rack by the door, ear cocked for the sounds that lingered just under the silence.

"Hey, Mom," he whispered, "I'm home."

_May 2006_


End file.
